Heads or Tails (Jack Henry, 3) - Softcover

Jack Gantos has written books for people of all ages, from picture books and middle-grade fiction to novels for young adults and adults. His works include Hole in My Life, a memoir that won the Michael L. Printz and Robert F. Sibert Honors; the Joey Pigza series, which include a Newbery Honor book and a National Book Award Finalist; Dead End in Norvelt, winner of the Newbery Medal and the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction; and the Rotten Ralph series.

Grade 5-8-A book that reads like an improbably successful collaboration between Betsy Byars and William Sleator: funny but ...weird! Set in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, sometime in the late '60s, these eight stories about an appealing sixth grader named Jack are filled with oddball characters and offbeat situations: neighbors, for example, keep 30 dogs (in the house), paint an atom bomb target on the roof, and drive cars on their lawn. Jack's world is not only weird, it's rootless. He's lived in nine different houses and attended five schools in six years-and, some days, it's even dangerously out of control: a plane falls out of the sky and the pilot is killed; the family's dog is eaten by an alligator; younger brother Pete keeps getting injured while in his care-no wonder Jack always thinks the worst and wistfully believes in UFOs, hoping "they'll take me away from all this confusion and set me down in a place without fear." And yet Jack, like the watch that takes a licking, always keeps on ticking, performing acts of unselfconscious kindness. He's a survivor, an "everyboy" whose world may be wacko but whose heart and spirit are eminently sane and generous. Gantos is a terrific writer with a wonderfully wry sensibility, a real talent for turning artful phrases, and a gift for creating memorable characters. In the first story Jack thinks, "I can either be a copycat for the rest of my life or I can be one-of-a-kind." By the final story, readers will realize that he has become the latter and so has this memorable book about him.
Michael Cart, formerly at Beverly Hills Public Library
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.